If that head coach Bill Belichick, Jim Harbaugh, Sean Payton or Mike McCarthy, the answer might be yes. If the head coach was Lovie Smith, Jim Schwartz, Mike Munchak or Norv Turner, the answer would be a resounding no.

It’s not just a matter of firing a head coach and improving the team. You have to make sure the guy you are bringing in is better than the guy you are letting go.

That makes him a breath of fresh air compared to most of the other coaches in the NFL. He doesn’t calculate before the words leave his mouth.

Take Smith in Chicago. He refuses to give his honest thoughts about anything regarding his football team. As the Bears prepare for their Week 16 game with the low-flying Arizona Cardinals, he stands up before the media and tells them that the 5-9 Cardinals are “a good team” despite their record and how much the “Chicago Bears are looking forward to the challenge.”

Smith is as Vanilla as Ryan is Rocky Road.

That doesn’t make Smith a bad coach and Ryan a good coach, but it’s important to know that the devil you do know may be better for you than the devil you don’t know.

Actually, Smith and Ryan are a lot more similar as coaches than they may seem. Smith is a defensive coach who leaves the offense to his assistants and the Bears have never had a decent offense during his tenure.

Ryan is also a defensive-minded coach – a legitimate guru during his days as a coordinator – but he really doesn’t know much about offense.

The fact that this team got to two AFC championship games following the 2009 and ’10 seasons is simply amazing and somewhat flukish.

But it’s now beside the point. They are not going to get back to that level again with the current personnel. That’s because general manager Mike Tannenbaum has been wrong in too many of his assessments over the year.

Ryan is well-liked by his players, they play hard for him and he speaks his mind. Those are three good characteristics for a head coach and allows his backers to at least make an argument for his continued employment with the Jets.